Originally, television was strictly a broadcast medium. That is, a particular television program was broadcast at a particular time on a particular channel and, if an individual desired to view the program, he or she had to tune to the appropriate channel at the designated time in order to view the program. In or about the early 1980s, the use of videocassette recorders (VCRs) became popular. These devices allowed television viewers to record television programs onto a video cassette tape as they were being broadcast and then watch the television program on tape at any time of their choosing. In order to record television programs using a VCR, the viewer had to know the broadcast time, duration, and broadcast channel of the program ahead of time in order to program the VCR to record the program.
In or about the early 2000s, digital video recorders (DVRs) became popular. “Digital video recorder” (DVR) refers to a device or system that records video in a digital format to a digital storage medium such as a disk drive or solid state memory for future playback. DVRs have different configurations. For example, a DVR may be a stand-alone, modular unit (such as those sold by TiVo), it may be a portable personal device, or it may be incorporated into other audiovisual components such as a set-top box (STB) or the TV itself. It may even be software for a personal computer (PC) that enables the PC to capture video for playback using the digital storage medium of the PC.
These DVRs are designed to interact directly with server-side equipment on the television network to enable users to record television programs for later viewing, similarly to a VCR. However, the ability to interface directly with server-side equipment on the network greatly enhanced usability. For instance, many of these devices permitted users to search an interactive program guide for television programs by name or category, thus relieving the user of the need to know the exact broadcast time and channel in order to record it. Rather, the user could simply find the program by searching for it and then, when located, click a “record” button, without ever having to know anything further about the program.
Around the same time that DVRs were coming into widespread use, another similar service, namely, Video-On-Demand (VOD) was coming into popularity in subscriber-based television networks that even further enhanced the ability of subscribers to view television programs at times of their choosing rather than at the time of a broadcast. VOD is a service offered by many subscription-based television networks that comes in many forms, but generally is a service which permits a subscriber to interact with server-side equipment on the network through manipulation of his or her STB and/or remote control unit, to peruse an interactive program guide that presents a menu of television programs previously recorded by the television network service provider and select from the menu any program the subscriber wishes to view. Upon selection, the server-side equipment transmits the recorded program to the subscriber's STB so that the subscriber may watch the program.
Also in the mid-2000s, it became common for consumers to consume media, including television programs, videos, movies, etc. on computers, mobile telephones, etc. via the Internet or other networks, such as cellular telephone networks. Web sites such as youtube.com and myspace.com offer videos to internet users. Furthermore, various web sites allow users to watch television programs on their computers via streaming over the internet. It also became popular to download content via a network into a memory of a portable device, such as a digital media player, and then view the content from the memory of the portable device without the need for a live connection to any network.
Accordingly, consumers now have many opportunities to watch video and multimedia at a time and place of their choosing. However, little or no attention has been given to enabling consumers of video to organize multiple individual video items into an organized set for viewing. The term “item” as used herein in connection with terms such as video item or multimedia item is used broadly to refer to any portion of video or multimedia. For instance, a video item could be a single episode of a television show, a complete season of a television show; a complete series of a televisions show, a portion of a single episode. It could be any piece of video that could form an item within a video playlist.